I wanted to do something good to someone and I am misunderstood. Take the most recent case, Narendra Modi and his teaboy background where I offered generous tips to him to serve tea at the Congress office. Mind you, I had in mind not Sri Lankan, Darjeeling or Chinese tea but brands closer to his heart, from his own ‘developed state’, like Especial, Masala, Badshah, Ukalo and so on. The Congress office will be generous with supplies of crockery, two or three saucers with each cuppa, six or seven with every large cup of Badshah tea. When I made that statement, I was thinking of Marlon Brando playing a Japanese servant-cum-teaboy in the famous book-cum-play-cum-movie Tea House of the August Moon. Didn’t I put Modi in such elevated company like Brando? Why should BJP stalwarts like Rajnath Singh or Arun Jaitley get upset?

In fact, I should have broadened my statement and added that Modi should serve tea in the BJP and aam aadmi offices too. Can you visualise delicate tea drinking ceremonies at the BJP office hosted by charming, kim­ono-clad Meenakshi, Nirmala, Smriti, Kiron with some help from Shaina N.C. who is yet to decide if she belongs to fashion shows, five-star parties or the TV shows where she screams “Rajdeep, Rajdeep!”, getting her throat dry in the process. Shaina could also design extra large kimonos for Meena­kshi. NaMo’s Especial tea would help her. After all, it will be “Tea! Thou soft, thou sober, sage and venerable liquid...from female tongue-running, smile- soothing, heart-opening, wink-tippling cordial....”

NaMo’s tea will be different in other ways. It will not be ‘tea and sympathy’ but will be substituted by ‘tea and anger’, ‘tea and contempt’, ‘tea and abuse’ and the incomparable Sardar tea, enriched with development. The NaMo chai will tickle the palate....

Our galaxy of stars would enjoy such tea. The new recruit Salman Khan would remove his shirt and snarl famous Hindi film dialogues (“Don’t angry me”) at those who hold Modi responsible for the Godhra riots. In another corner, Kiran Bedi will announce that if NaMo continued to serve such heavenly tea, she would do a rethink on whether she would vote only for Modi but not the BJP. While promoting ‘NaMo tea’ at the Fat Cat jamboree at Davos, columnist Tavleen Singh would predict such a tea would boost the Indian economy and make Modi an international figure. With so much at stake, why should the BJP stalwarts be upset with me for my suggestion? I will do my little bit, organising a Modi tea club at my own coffee drinking constituency, Mayiladuthurai!

The Mumbai-based satirist is the creator of ‘Trishanku’; E-mail your secret diarist: vgangadhar70 AT gmail.com

If you wish your letter to be considered for publication in the print magazine, we request you to use a proper name, with full postal address - you could still maintain your anonymity, but please desist from using unpublishable sobriquets and handles

Thank you to all those who have taken the trouble to read the article and share their thoughts. Out of the arguments made here, there are two that perhaps need answering. So here they go.

1. The first part of the article compares outcomes (relative percentages of population of the religions concerned) irrespective of the process that led to those outcomes - whether immigration, relatively faster population growth or conversions. This was for two reasons. One, to put the figure of 2.3 per cent in "numerical perspective", as the article itself explained. The second reason was that outcomes are ultimately what the crux of debate is about. The rest of the article in any case dealt with process - or conversions in this case, from both a contemporary and historical perspective.

2. Some commenters have tried to cast doubts on the reliability of Census 2001. Those who do this should bear in mind that Census 2001 was conducted by a BJP government. Considering the extreme importance that BJP gives to this issue, it would be reasonable to expect that IF it had perceived a problem with the methodology that was distorting the numbers, it would have fixed it. As the article mentioned, BJP or BJP-supported governments have been in power for 10 of the last 40 years, or about a quarter of the time, and the only reasonable conclusion one can arrive at is that any misreporting of numbers, real or perceived, would be marginal and hence, not of importance.

To all other arguments made, my answer is the following: Please read the article again, with particular focus on the quotations of Vivekananda and Monier Williams, and the history of the missionary efforts in Bengal and their outcome.

Thanks and Regards,
Tony Joseph

1/D-116

Jan 25, 2014

08:29 PM

Hey, why have you missed out on "Kashmiri Tea" in your listing, a fabulous infusion of Masala (Spice) ?.......
It will be very apt to include it as the latest IDR presents pictorially Col Tej Tikoo handing his "book"
(presumably with factual records of Kashmir as well as their tea) to NaMo in the presence of a delegation of Kashmiri Pandits ! ......
Alas, Namo has forgotten about the abrogation of Art 370 in his campaign speeches now. He is simply settling for a "debate" on Art 370, in other words all sorts of wishy washy time wasting talks that lead to nowhere for the very few Hindu Kashmiri Pandits still alive as refugees in their motherland of India outside Kashmir. ...
Oh, Rajnath recently confirms that BJP would be happy to retain Art 370 as sacrosanct if it shows that it is beneficial to the Kashmiri themselves - read for that the Muslim population of Kashmir since Hindus and Sikhs have been virtually driven out of Kashmir by the Islamic terror. ...
May be because of this NaMo is no more interested in selling Kashmiri tea !

The most indecent comment of this third rated politician with no political base of his own denigrating the leader of opposition who commands support of half a billion people asking him to serve tea to feudal lords attracts no condemnation in the secular land.. the communist class warriors in The Hindu also found only a satire column to address this issue and the main pitch of that allegedly satire article - Modi is not qualified to be a tea boy becauses tea shops are secular and Modi was communal .

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